News

Commission is failing Women

The European Commission’s commitment to dealing with women has been questioned by progressive politicians today. In the European Parliament Plenary session in Strasbourg session the Chair of the FEMM Committee Iratxe Garcia Perez MEP (S&D and PES Presidency member) took the European Commission to task for failing to issue a strategy which would effectively bring equality for women. While women still suffer from discrimination and lag behind in pay and access to top positions, the European Commission is neglecting in its duty to deal with this key issue.

Previously the Commission published five year Gender Equality Strategies (GES). This has now been replaced by a ‘Staff Working document’ with no legal implications on the ‘Strategic Engagement on Equality between women and men’.

Zita Gurmai – PES Women President, said on the issue:

‘While the playing field between women and men is slowly being leveled, too many women are still not able to fulfill their potential because of their gender. A new Gender Equality Strategy from the European Commission would engage all European Member States in the issue and show women in Europe that their representatives have not abandoned them.

If we in Europe want to achieve the EU2020 goals for women’s employment, and if we want to close the Gender Pay Gap in Europe, which will be held to account we need binding measures not staff working documents.

Gender Equality is an issue for all, not only women, and as such should be dealt with separately; women represent over 50% of the population and are not a minority.’